No matter what you think about Buzzfeed publishing a dossier of unverified information about Trump, threatening the free press with “consequences” should never be tolerated.

But that’s exactly what Donald Trump did during his first press conference in six months after the contents of the report went viral.

On Tuesday, Buzzfeed released a dossier of alleged information gathered by Russia to use against Trump, which included a claim that he was videotaped at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow paying prostitutes to pee on the bed in the presidential suite that President Obama had used during previous visits to the nation.

Predictably, Trump lashed out on Twitter.

Russia just said the unverified report paid for by political opponents is “A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE.” Very unfair!

Apparently, Trump feels it is perfectly acceptable to tout fake news about Hillary Clinton but when that news is about him he thinks it’s unacceptable and should be punished.

It’s true that the information has yet to be verified, but this is no different than a lot of the bullshit stories Fox News ran with about President Obama over the last eight years and no different than what conservative media and Trump did to Hillary Clinton over the course of the election by citing unverified Wikileaks documents.

But rather than simply dispute the report, Trump went a tyrannical step further by threatening Buzzfeed with “consequences” for reporting on the story.

“As far as BuzzFeed, which is a failing pile of garbage — writing it — I think they’re going to suffer the consequences,” Trump said.

Here’s the video via YouTube.

Trump went on to have a shouting match with CNN’s Jim Acosta and accused the news organization of being “fake news” as his minions applauded.

Donald Trump is a serious threat to the free press. And he’s only making things worse for himself by making such accusations.

Fox News politics editor Chris Stirewalt warned Trump to be careful earlier on Wednesday, basically noting that Trump only has himself to blame.

“I would caution Trump and his supporters about this: This is what they asked for when they praised Julian Assange and Wikileaks to the high heavens and said, ‘We don’t care where it came from. We don’t care if it’s verified. It’s been stolen but it’s bad for the Democrats and now the truth is out so here you go.’”